Web content is getting progressively more elaborate with increased amounts of images, videos, and other multimedia content. Although computers are getting faster and broadband usage is increasingly widespread, increased multimedia content means that websites are taking longer to load than ever before. The amount of data required to convey the useful information on any given page is typically several orders of magnitude less than the data required to supply all the images, scripts, stylesheets, and multimedia elements that surround it. The problem then is how to only request the minimum amount data from a web server to convey the essential information from that page.
Various methods exist in the art to obtain a smaller version of a requested webpage. One workaround is that pages have a “no-images” or “mobile-edition” version that contains the same content presented with minimal graphical frills. The key problem with this approach is that each no-images or mobile edition is specific to the website, and must be specifically defined and presented by the web server—there is no generic solution that can be adopted across disparate websites.
Technologies like WAP and WML (Wireless Application Protocol/Wireless Markup Language) also exist to provide an entire design methodology tailored to low-bandwidth web-browsing. The key disadvantage is they require significant investment to apply, since WAP is a specialized protocol and WML is a different markup language unsupported by major browsers. Also, the use of WAP and WML requires special authoring from the web site developer. Further, WAP/WML is designed for small screens, such as mobile devices, and is not easily ported to large screens on the end of congested connections.
Additionally, some web browsers have the ability to ignore content that comes from particular sites or block specific items such as advertisements from loading within a displayed webpage. However, these workarounds do not distinguish between more important and less important information on a webpage because the browser simply blocks or ignores an entire media type, and all of the content on the page is still downloaded by many of the users.